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The Edmonton Eskimos will no longer be the only professional football team in town.

Fans in the City of Champions will soon be cheering on women in football helmets and lingerie as the controversial Lingerie Football League announced plans Wednesday to give market rights to Edmonton and four other Canadian cities, including Calgary.

The league is aiming to hold its first ever LFL Canada season next fall, which will include teams from Toronto, Vancouver, Quebec City, and Montreal, said league officials in a press release.

Mitchell Mortaza, the head and founder of the lacy pigskin league, said the team is a lock to play in Edmonton as early as next September, even if no one locally comes forward to buy the franchise.

The season will end a day before the CFL’s traditional Grey Cup game with LFL Canada’s Lingerie Bowl, said Mortaza.

And there’s a demand, said Mortaza, who adds the team could fill a 9,000- to a 15,000-seat venue within its first year.

The league, however, is still working on a contract deal for a venue in Edmonton, but Mortaza wouldn’t say if that is Rexall Place.

“I would be absolutely shocked if we didn’t lock up an arena,” said Mortaza.

“Arenas in the U.S. have lined up for teams because of the success of this league.”

The league was created in 2009 and its games are usually played in the fall and winter in NHL-sized arenas.

But critics of the league say the games degrade female athletes because it uses sex to sell an athletic league.

And Dr. Michelle Meagher, an assistant professor with the woman’s studies program at the University of Alberta’s faculty of arts, says the football league is part of “a larger cultural practice that takes female athletes less seriously.

“If I were a female athlete I would be really troubled by this,” said Meagher.

“This is deeply problematic if not demeaning to female athletes who put in a lot of time and effort to strengthening themselves for the good of their sport.”

Dave Jamieson, a spokesman with the Edmonton Eskimos, says the CFL team will not be involved with a lingerie football team.

“Women’s sports have struggled to gain traction like the men’s sports,” said Mortaza about the criticism.

“We might pull fans in with the sex appeal or the fact that media and fans are curious about what this product is, but it wouldn’t have grown at the pace it has if the product on the field wasn’t credible or very compelling.”

Mortaza says league officials will be meeting with “interested groups” in three weeks who are considering to buy the team.

The league will also be holding a contest where fans will have a chance to name a team in Edmonton. The winner will get lifetime season tickets.